House of Lords: Reform

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath for putting down this Question for debate today.

As a new Member who joined your Lordships’ House in June this year, I am fully aware that this is the second Chamber in our parliamentary system. We are the revising House that sometimes asks the other place to think again. No party has a majority and the Conservative Government have to persuade the House of the merits of their case. However, at the end of the day the will of the Commons takes precedence if no agreement can be reached.

If we move to an elected second Chamber, this noble House will become democratically legitimate. No matter what is put in place to guarantee the supremacy of the Commons, the fact that Members sitting on these Benches are elected will change the whole relationship between the two Houses. That may be something that this House wants to do but, if that is where we go, we have to be prepared to face up to the consequences of that fact.

What we will not get away with is having elections at the same time as the local or European elections on some national or regional PR list system, with Members being returned and this House carrying on as before because we have the Parliament Acts and the Salisbury convention. Maybe we will need a Clegg or a Taylor convention so that we codify how the Government would deal with a newly elected House of Lords elected midway through their mandate. The candidates will have stood on their parties’ manifestos and some Members will have been returned to this House with the democratic authority to oppose specific elements of the Government’s manifesto put to the country some years before.

From my few short months in this House, I suggest that there is much here that the other place could learn from. No one likes change and that is as true of this House as it is of any other organisation or workplace. As we begin these discussions, we should do so with caution, proper debate and careful consideration of the consequences of any proposals for change.